Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to detection methods of phenol and its derivatives. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to a method of determining a concentration of phenol and/or a phenol derivative in a solution with a graphite pencil electrode system, wherein a surface of the graphite pencil working electrode is charged by voltammetry and the phenol and/or its derivative to be detected are subsequently electropolymerized on the charged surface of the graphite pencil working electrode in open circuit fashion and quantified by voltammetry.
Description of the Related Art
The “background” description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description which may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, is neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present invention.
Phenol and its derivatives are common pollutants produced by various industries, such as petroleum, paper, plastic, pharmaceutical, and pesticide manufacturing. These pullutants may be found in water samples from river water, lake water, ground water, waste water, a refinery industry effluent, a chemical industry effluent, a paper industry effluent, etc.
Phenol and its derivatives are toxic. Phenol and its vapors are corrosive to the eyes, the skin, and the respiratory tract. Its corrosive effect on the skin and mucous membranes is due to a protein-degenerating effect. Repeated or prolonged skin contact with phenol or its derivatives may cause dermatitis, or even second and third-degree burns. Exposure to phenol and its derivatives may also result in damages to the central nervous system and the heart, leading to dysrhythmia, seizures, and coma. Additionally, long-term or repeated exposure to phenol and its derivatives may have harmful effects on the liver and kidneys. Thus, it is critical to monitor the levels of phenol and its derivatives in the environment, particularly in the water systems.
Various analytical techniques have been developed for phenol detection. These techniques include spectrophotometry, chromatography, and electroanalytical methods (See S. Amlathe, V. K. Gupta, Spectrophotometric determination of phenol in air, Fresenius. J. Anal. Chem. 339 (1991) 199-200; W. Medjor, C. Wepuaka, S. Godwill, Spectrophotometric Determination of Phenol in Natural Waters by Trichloromethane Extraction Method after Steam Distillation, Int. Res. J. Pure Appl. Chem. 7 (2015) 150-156; S. Chakravarty, M. K. Deb, R. K. Mishra, Simple Spectrophotometric Determination of Phenol in Industrial Waste Water, Asian J. Chem. 6 (1994) 766-770; J.-J. Ye, W. Feng, M.-M. Tian, J.-L. Zhang, W.-H. Zhou, Q. Jia, Spectrophotometric determination of phenol by flow injection on-line preconcentration with a micro-column containing magnetic microspheres functionalized with Cyanex272, Anal. Methods. 5 (2013) 1046; O. Agrawal, V. K. Gupta, Sub-Parts-per-Million Spectrophotometric Determination of Phenol and Related Pesticides Using Diazotizedp-Aminoacetophenone, Microchem. J. 62 (1999) 147-153; J. P. Rawat, K. P. Singh Muktawat, Sensitive, selective spectrophotometric determination of phenols with periodic acid, Microchem. J. 30 (1984) 289-296; Y. Fiamegos, C. Stalikas, G. Pilidis, M. Karayannis, Synthesis and analytical applications of 4-aminopyrazolone derivatives as chromogenic agents for the spectrophotometric determination of phenols, Anal. Chim. Acta. 403 (2000) 315-323; M. Nassiri, M. M. Zahedi, S. M. Pourmortazavi, M. Yousefzade, Optimization of dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction for preconcentration and spectrophotometric determination of phenols in Chabahar Bay seawater after derivatization with 4-aminoantipyrine., Mar. Pollut. Bull. 86 (2014) 512-7; R. Sun, Y. Wang, Y. Ni, S. Kokot, Spectrophotometric analysis of phenols, which involves a hemin-graphene hybrid nanoparticles with peroxidase-like activity., J. Hazard. Mater. 266 (2014) 60-7; N. Venugopal, A. Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy, G. Madhavi, Development and validation of a systematic UPLC-MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of three phenol impurities in ritonavir., J. Pharm. Biomed. Anal. 90 (2014) 127-33; I. V. Gruzdev, I. M. Kuzivanov, I. G. Zenkevich, B. M. Kondratenok, Gas-chromatographic identification of products formed in iodination of methyl phenols by retention indices, Russ. J. Appl. Chem. 85 (2012) 1355-1365; M. T. Oliva-Teles, C. Delerue-Matos, H. P. a. Nouws, M. C. M. Alvim-Ferraz, Chromatographic Techniques for the Determination of Free Phenol in Foundry Resins, Anal. Lett. 44 (2011) 1536-1543; H. Gao, W. Cao, Y. Liang, N. Cheng, B. Wang, J. Zheng, Determination of Thymol and Phenol in Honey by LC with Electrochemical Detection, Chromatographia. 72 (2010) 361-363; R. Sadeghi, H. Karimi-Maleh, M. A. Khalilzadeh, H. Beitollahi, Z. Ranjbarha, M. B. P. Zanousi, A new strategy for determination of hydroxylamine and phenol in water and waste water samples using modified nanosensor., Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. Int. 20 (2013) 6584-93; H. Guan, X. Liu, W. Wang, Encapsulation of tyrosinase within liposome bioreactors for developing an amperometric phenolic compounds biosensor, J. Solid State Electrochem. 17 (2013) 2887-2893; J. Ren, T.-F. Kang, R. Xue, C.-N. Ge, S.-Y. Cheng, Biosensor based on a glassy carbon electrode modified with tyrosinase immmobilized on multiwalled carbon nanotubes, Microchim. Acta. 174 (2011) 303-309; and N. Negash, H. Alemu, M. Tessema, Determination of Phenol and Chlorophenols at Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes/Poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) Modified Glassy Carbon Electrode Using Flow Injection Amperometry, Am. J. Anal. Chem. 5 (2014) 188-198, each incorporated herein by reference in their entirety).
However, most of these methods are time consuming and costly, because they require pretreatment, extraction, and surface assimilation (See Z. Zhong, G. Li, R. Wu, B. Zhu, Z. Luo, Determination of aminophenols and phenol in hair colorants by ultrasound-assisted solid-phase dispersion extraction coupled with ion chromatography, J. Sep. Sci. 37 (2014) 2208-2214; and N. N. M. Zain, N. K. Abu Bakar, S. Mohamad, N. M. Saleh, Optimization of a greener method for removal phenol species by cloud point extraction and spectrophotometry, Spectrochim. Acta—Part A Mol. Biomol. Spectrosc. 118 (2014) 1121-1128, each incorporated herein by reference in their entirety). Electrochemical methods have attracted the attention for the detection of phenol due to their low cost, simplicity, and speed, however, the continuous formation of an adhesive and semipermeable layer comprising the electrooxidation products of phenol on the surface of solid electrodes has made the electrochemical detection of phenol challenging (See X. Yang, J. Kirsch, J. Fergus, A. Simonian, Modeling analysis of electrode fouling during electrolysis of phenolic compounds, Electrochim. Acta. 94 (2013) 259-268, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety).
It is thus an object of the present disclosure to provide an electrochemical method of determining a concentration of phenol and/or a phenol derivative in a solution using a graphite pencil electrode system, wherein a surface of the graphite pencil working electrode is charged by voltammetry and the phenol and/or its derivative to be detected are subsequently electropolymerized on the charged surface of the graphite pencil working electrode in open circuit fashion and quantified by voltammetry, preferably square wave voltammetry. The disclosed method advantageously overcomes the fouling of an electrode surface by phenol while exhibiting a high sensitivity, a satisfactory linear range, and a low detection limit of phenol.